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PS3 Pre-Orders Came and Went
Warlock7 writes "Well, it's official. The pre-orders have begun ... and mostly ended. I just got mine ordered and four hours later there are already units on eBay. Some acutions have already gone north of $1000 USD. The guys at
EBGames told me that the most units going to any one store was 36 and that there were an average of 8 units being distributed to each store. The one I went to reported that they were going to be getting a total of 16 units. They waited this long to take pre-orders because they wanted to be sure that they weren't going to get burned like they did for the XBox 360 launch." The reports from across the internets are varied, with long lines netting nothing for some, and others reaping the sweet rewards.
At the time of my looking at it, sure amounts were at 1,000 bucks or higher, but that was the starting bid and no one has yet bid on it. Not saying it won't happen, but at the time of story posting it is misleading.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
No they haven't.
The linked auction search only shows LISTED auctions for the PS3. The starting bids for a couple are $1000 or more. NONE of them (as of this post) have any bids.
Close, pre-orders are hype-machines. The fewer machine they put out means the easier it is to declare that all pre-orders sold out, and the bigger hype they can get from envious users who want to be able to claim that they have a PS3 pre-ordered as well. Think about it; would there be that much hype over the damn things if Sony released like 3.0 million world wide and every store had ~ 50 or so to shell out to people? (more in cities with higher populations) Hell, in that scenario, people would be more surprised about the fact that they actually had enough units on release to satisfy the initial rush. In that scenario, people would care about the release for about a week, then be busy playing because most everyone who was going to get one would have one already.
The entire continent is getting 400k units. GameStop/EB is not going to get them all. Best Buy, Circuit City, WalMart, and more will be selling them without preorders.
It's not really a scam to me. The way I see it, I am forfeiting the interest from that $100 in exchange for a) waiting outside in the chilly October cold rather than the frigid November cold and b) not having to wait for more than 24 hours outside.
The mark of a mature person is not creating arbitrary criteria for considering others mature.
The product launch is about a month away, you put down $100. Lets say you could get 4.40% (currently what I get on savings). ($100*.044)/12 = .36
So you are paying a .36 "fee" to be certain to get a system. Ripoff? hardly.
First, EB isn't getting 400k units, they're getting a percentage of the 400k available.
They're also not making that much sure they'll make some interest, but it's less than 45 days away, it's not like they've had the money for months. They're certainly not making "mad interest" as you suggest.
On top of that, if the item doesn't show up, you get your deposit back.
Actually, they are using cutting edge technology on their console, except, as stated in some recent interviews on the official site, they are utilizing these advances for their low cooling requirements and power requirements.